Usually we try to tell a person what their need is, and they just vehemently resist, so I've sometimes changed the praying: God, open their eyes so they can see. Whatever it is that's holding them back, we just stand against that - and it can be just immense grief, because the first phase of grief is shock, and the inability to come to grips with what it is. So no one really knows all of those things, but trauma and grief, denial, and just sometimes just stubborn resistance: I won't admit I've got a need, that can come out of inner vows. I think that prayer can increase the opportunity and the likelihood they would open up, but it doesn't guarantee it. We still have - everyone is given a free will, so you can't override someone's free will. When we override... [Can God?] Well can God - that's a good question. Firstly, he can. Well Paul's determined to go down the road and kill Christians. and He just goes pow, and zaps him off, but He never overrode his will. He just gave an encounter that opened his eyes up, and he suddenly realised he was making a big mistake.
God has given man a free will. If He takes it away by overriding it, the core of being human is taken away, so God - it seldom overrides a person's free will. Free will is what makes me a human being. If I don't have free will, or my free will is taken away, I'm a slave, so that's one of the dilemmas. God has created man for dominion and given him free will, but not choice over consequences, so God doesn't override free will, and He has set in place consequences. That's how He has set up the world to operate, so only by faith can we access something coming in from heaven to earth, but God doesn't override free will. So I think it's extraordinary that you are given free will to the extent you can choose a destiny that's eternally lost, it's incredible that God would give so much, but taking it away would so enslave you, you wouldn't be human. So it's the dilemma God faced; He gave man free will, but with it the potential he could just misuse it, or use it to rebel, and therefore all this destruction.
So we have to be very careful we do not override the will of another person who's an adult, and a responsible adult. To do that involves witchcraft, because witchcraft is the usurping the authority that someone else legally has, which is what their response - so responsibility and authority go together, so what you're responsible for, you have authority over to do certain things. If I move and take up your responsibility, and minimise your authority and take over, I'm now operating outside what God has called me to do, and I've taken over. I'm operating in witchcraft, which is an unlawful authority, so I didn't put a section but I'm thinking about it, that perhaps I should put a section in related to this, because unlawful spiritual authority, or unlawful authority, is a problem everywhere, where someone has taken over and controls another person's life, and the person lets them do it, because it's easier for them to give up responsibility and let someone else run it. This creates a spiritual dynamic where witchcraft operates, and sits over the whole marriage or relationship, and it creates huge problems. Sickness, infirmities, all kinds of things come in.
Many families and marriages and churches are full of this, so when you arise and start to operate in spiritual authority, the one thing you become intensely aware of, is the issue of witchcraft and the whole Jezebellic operation. I haven't included it in this, but that's a whole sort of area of its own. It's got major issues around it. It can never operate unless someone gave permission for it to operate, so for example God held Ahab responsible for the corruption in the nation, and He judged Ahab because Ahab gave up responsibility, and allowed him to be usurped by his wife. So we tend to get into this anti-woman thing and blame Jezebel for this and that, which is actually totally unfair, because men and women are both capable of controlling behaviours, and the spirit is totally impartial who it works through. The issue is whether we take up responsibility, or abscond or abdicate. Everywhere you abdicate something will come in and take over. That's just the reality.
So that's why I have discovered in this area, if you have abdicated responsibility over an area of your life or responsibility, something will sit in there, and when you arise, repent, ask God to forgive you, take up your responsibility, start to pray, you will engage and have some conflict. You'll find then something sitting there. Most people aren't aware something's sitting there until you step up and try actually change your life. Then you find it's there, and then you find it pushes back against you, and you have some problems.
I want to have a look at Section 4.7, how to recognise and deal with spiritual attacks, and then just the issue of self-deliverance. I think these are quite - everyone is going to go through issues of spiritual attack at some point. Now we don't want to over-dramatise it, and kind of be looking for demons everywhere, but there are times when pressure comes on you. It's helpful if you know what it is, and know what to do about it. If you don't, you'll just try to push on. Spiritual problems need a spiritual solution, but don't spiritualise everything. Some things are very natural, very practical, so the dilemma you have is, where people look for a devil everywhere. You'll see what you want to see, so let the focus of our eyes be on God and His goodness, not on the problems. But having said that, we do recognise there are times when you come under immense spiritual pressure, and it is very real, and it can be stressing if you don't know what to do with it.